Live Encounters Poetry & Writing January 2026.
Monet’s The Garden in Flower, poems by Diane Fahey.
Monet’s The Garden in Flower
An overhang of branches
cherishes the last of darkness
as light enters between slender trunks,
fires up a long billow of cosmos,
crimson and white, scattered with yellow –
massed blooms, such as the painter loved.
Below, a frieze, delectably pink,
of dahlias – still in eclipse,
ready to be bright together.
Even for Monet, the fresh pleasure
of making, with each dappling stroke,
a flower. Multiple times.
Some few hollyhocks tower,
cameo portraits, singly iconic
above clumps of mauve-pink, bluish green.
The pathway – nave and arcade –
is crossed by shadows tinted with
earth colours, flower colours.
Everywhere, with or without a dawn breeze,
perfumes unmask their power.
Each pollened heart waits.
At Daybreak
The Artful Crow by Jiří Hřebíček
Shapeless drifts pervade
a park in Basel, its tallest trees
wrapped like spars in a sea mist.
On a bough vaguely in leaf,
a crow: its ebony shine masked,
what must be an eye
at one with that dulled plumage.
Stage right, luminance
hovers, enters:
a prescient veil
with traces of white gold,
a subliminal green.
The photographer’s open lens
moves slightly, quickly,
here-and-there, creating
airy tremors of foliage,
edging branches with doubt,
so that the crow takes on
something of their story,
worn like a ghostly patina,
a dream being dreamed.
No songs. But this silence,
its soft splendour
shared with every leaf.
Threshold
A Moonlit River Landscape, c.1855
– Charles-François Daubigny
There must be a fallen sun
close under the horizon
for these rose cloud-colours to prevail,
reshaping the moon, brokenly gold,
in a sky wherein the blue of day
companions night’s indigo.
The river, richly darkened by
tree shadows, captures
that sky, moment by moment,
lending shine and substance.
Easy, once you have accepted
that everything is passing, becoming,
to enter this summer night scene,
its serene atmosphere –
rendered, with heartfelt attention,
through the glide and risk of oils.
Everything holds its own freedom:
the human figure on the far bank,
those high trees roughly, loosely
clad in many greens,
a vermilion sailing boat
poised on its double, waiting.
© Diane Fahey
Diane Fahey’s sixteenth poetry collection is Sanctuaries (Puncher & Wattmann, 2024). She has received various awards and fellowships for her poetry. Her poetry has been published widely in Australia and internationally, and has been represented in over 80 anthologies. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing.